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Linux at Yorktown High School

Yorktown High School in Arlington,
Virginia is composed of about 1500 students in grades 9-12. More
than 80 of these students are enrolled in a computer science
course, and all of them use Linux.

Until the 1997-98 school year began, these courses were
taught using proprietary software from Microsoft, Borland and other
vendors. Since then, Linux has grown steadily within the computer
science department and throughout the rest of the school.

Computers are in every classroom at the school. The variety
of machines ranges from Apple Macintoshes used by the newspaper,
yearbook and English classes, to x86-class machines, a Sun
workstation, and a PowerMac clone used by the computer science
classes. Yorktown is connected to the Internet via a T1 line to the
county Education Center. Internally, the school is networked via
10baseT Ethernet, with multiple drops (Ethernet ports) available in
every room.

Computer Science is taught by Jeff Elkner. This class uses
Pentium-class machines, all running Linux Mandrake 6.1. Students
are greeted with a graphical kdm
login screen which allows them to click on their photo (taken with
a digital camera at the beginning of the year) and enter their
password to log in. Students may use any machine in the lab,
because we have configured all the systems to use NIS and NFS. The
machines are served by our shell server, named linus.

Until this year, students learned to program in C++ with the
GNU C++ compiler (g++). This year, students begin with Python and
move to C++ only after mastering the fundamentals of programming.
This was partly inspired by the fact that Guido van Rossum,
Python's creator, has agreed to visit the school and help these
students as part of his Computer Programming for Everyone (CP4E)
project.

AP Computer Science is also taught by Jeff Elkner. Students
continue to learn C++, as well as take AP C++ classes provided by
the College Board. This has been problem-free, with one small
exception. Though the College Board's AP classes are
platform-independent, they are not free software. Former student
Paul Morie (morie@uiuc.edu) and current student Jonah Cohen
(ComAsYuAre@aol.com) collaborated to write a free replacement
called pclasses. This software is
available under the GPL and can be downloaded from the school's web
site.

Advanced Topics

Advanced Topics students have no set course of study. At the
beginning of each quarter, they outline a set of goals and must
meet them before the beginning of the next term. Students usually
work in small groups to accomplish their projects.

One project that has been very successful is the Python
Resource Kit
(http://yhslug.tux.org/python/).
The kit is a downloadable ISO image, as it is meant for
redistribution, but the school often burns copies for first-year
students so that they can take them home and install Python on
their Windows machines.

Another project that has made much progress so far is the
Open Book Project
(http://yhslug.tux.org/obp/).
The project is an effort to create a freely redistributable
textbook for computer science teachers. It is based on Allen
Downey's How to Think Like a Computer
Scientist book, and has been modified for Python and C++
instead of Java.

Successes

Because the county had difficulties in setting up an e-mail
server to offer accounts to students and teachers, we have
configured a mail server and given free e-mail accounts to students
and teachers who have requested them. In addition to mail, Linux
also powers the school's web server
(http://yhspatriot.yorktown.arlington.k12.va.us/).

Another use of Linux at Yorktown is powering the Student
Portfolio
(http://yhslug.tux.org/~portfolio/cgi-bin/)
database. Over the summer, Lex Bereznhy collaborated with me to
write a Python-based database that allows students to plan their
schedules, showcase their work and communicate with their
teachers.

Another one of the school's successful projects is PyTicket
(http://yhslug.tux.org/~pyticket/cgi-bin/).
Teachers or anyone else in need of assistance can simply fill out a
form and get a web-based “ticket”. Students check these tickets
every morning, and are dispatched to help teachers with their
computer problems.

Using Linux has saved the county tens of thousands of dollars
in software licenses, provided students with an opportunity to
learn Linux/UNIX basics, and has given the school an opportunity to
contribute to the free software community.

Finally, this article would not be complete without mention
of the school's newest project. By the time you read this, the
inaugural meeting of the Yorktown High School Linux Users Group
(YHSLUG,
http://yhslug.tux.org/)
will have been held. Attendance of around 20 users is expected.
Drop by if you are in the neighborhood!

Justin Maurer
is the youngest hacker at Helix
Code, Inc. He formerly wrote for Slashdot, and now sometimes
contributes to Linux.com. He is also a Debian developer, and can be
reached via e-mail at justin@slashdot.org.